Review of Match Point (2005) by Andre T — 07 Oct 2011

Written and directed by Woody Allen, and starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Scarlett Johansson, Emily Mortimer, Matthew Goode, Brian Cox and Penelope Wilton.The film is a debate with Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, which Chris is seen reading early on. Doestovsky's anti-hero Raskolnikov is a brooding loner who kills an old woman to prove that he is a superior being, but is racked by guilt and eventually admits all to a dogged sleuth, although he is finally redeemed by punishment, the love of a poor girl and the discovery of God. Chris is a brooding loner who kills a poor girl who loves him because he considers his interests superior to those around him, knows no guilt, and avoids detection by a dogged sleuth through sheer luck. Allen signals his intentions with more superficial similarities: Both killers attempt to cover their crime by faking a robbery; two unexpected painters on the stairs nearly throw both killers' plans into disarray; both dogged sleuths play cat and mouse with their respective killers. Allen argues, unlike Dostoevsky, that there is neither God, punishment nor love to provide redemption.

The story also borrows liberally from the dramatic half of Allen's earlier film, Crimes and Misdemeanors. Like in Match Point, that film's protagonist, Judah Rosenthal, is an affluent member of the upper-middle class who's having an extramarital affair. After he threatens to break the affair off, the mistress blackmails him and threatens to go to his wife. Soon, the protagonist takes matters into his own hands and decides to murder his mistress. Although the two characters experience brief pangs of guilt both end their respective films suppressing what little remorse they feel for the crime, and go on as if nothing had happened.

However, while Crimes and Misdemeanors is the main source of inspiration for Match Point, it also alludes to some of Allen's other films. The tennis scenes here are reminiscent of the earlier tennis scenes in Annie Hall, and the final shot involving Chris gazing out the window into a vacant sky is a direct quotation of the final shot from Interiors, where Diane Keaton, Mary Beth Hurt, and Kristin Griffith do the same.Allen in great shape, this is a great movie.